Restricted humanitarian access inside Syria has resulted in limited information being available to humanitarian-decision makers on the child protection needs and capacities of the affected communities. At the request of the international humanitarian organisations working in the child protection sector, the global-level Child Protection Working Group (CPWG) initiated an assessment, using remote information gathering methodologies, to determine the scale and scope of child protection issues to inform responses, planning, advocacy and resource mobilisation.
An interagency steering committee, comprised of international humanitarian organisations, was formed to oversee the design and implementation of the assessment. On the basis of their understanding of the situation, the steering committee agreed to focus on the following key thematic areas: psychosocial wellbeing, physical violence, children associated with armed forces and armed groups, child marriage, sexual violence, child labour, separation from caregivers and access to basic services and information. Under each of these thematic areas, the steering committee identified key information points that the assessment should cover, or What We Need to Know.
The assessment design was determined in consultation with the measurement and assessment taskforce of the CPWG, and implementation began in February 2013. A number of CPWG member agencies contributed to the realisation of this assessment, including through expertise and staff time for data collection, analysis and interpretation, and providing inputs into this report.
This report, issued by the CPWG, presents the main ?ndings of this interagency child protection assessment for Syria, covering the period February – May 2013. Graphs within the report present the primary information gathered through interviews with resource persons in the affected populations, and this is complemented by qualitative information from further primary information sources (through interviews with humanitarian workers) and a desk review of secondary information on Syria. In addition to this report, the CPWG have made the desk review (one component of this assessment) available as a separate document. The primary data collected through interviews has not been issued separately and remains with the CPWG.
